PHOENIX – With election campaign ads flooded the TV airwaves, some other TV advertisers are turning to connected TV to get their message across.
More than $1 billion has now been spent on TV ads for the 2020 presidential election in just 13 states.
In this video interview with Beet.TV, James Moore, CRO of ad-tech supplier Simpli.fi, says that is prompting other advertisers to seek another option.
Election ad effect
Moore says election candidates, too, are using connected TV “with the primary goal, obviously, of incremental reach and targeted reach to specific audience KPIs”.
But there’s a secondary dynamic. Moore adds: “Interestingly enough, because of the boom in political dollars, not only in CTV but in linear and battleground markets like Arizona, we’re seeing large local advertisers who maybe weren’t advertising in connected TV make migrations into connected TV in an effort to still be able to reach their target audience … large auto dealer groups, attorneys, healthcare groups, that sort of thing.
“From a national advertiser perspective, we’ve seen a real nice shift in consumer goods, consumer marketing, particularly the whole craze with DIY and all the growth around doing things at home, cleaning at home, home projects, that sort of thing.”
CTV growth
Internet-connected viewing options are booming, with viewership also swelled by the pandemic.
EMarketer estimates CTV ad spending will reach $10.81 billion in the US in 2021 – up 56% from two years earlier, and representing around 15% of total US TV ad spending.
Benefits include targeting viewers or households, capping ad exposure frequency, increasing reach and attribution to outcomes like store visitation.
But Moore knows connected TV is a fragmented landscape, and one that isn’t yet as realtime as programmatic display or mobile.
Advancing CTV
“To buy the full scope of ad supported connected TV, we have to staff a team that has to literally negotiate with individualised content producers and publishers across hundreds or even thousands of private marketplace deals,” he says.
“Each one of those individual content companies or publishers might have very specific rules around which advertisers they do and don’t let advertise or how fast they respond in messaging.
“So, in a world where we’re used to operating in milliseconds, trying to get our hands around the entire inventory that’s out there and the fragmented way it’s being brought to market to be purchased, continues to be a challenge. But it’s improving every single day.”
Spending is trending
The new wave of CTV advertisers does not just consist of the same set of brands looking for a different type of TV. It is widely thought that CTV spending is also being buoyed by budgets switching from digital channels like social.
“There’s this large migration of digital dollars and new advertisers and new agencies jumping into connected TV,” Moore says.
But he says there is a skills and learning gap for some.
“They may not have the infrastructure associated with building high-quality video creative assets specifically for TV,” Moore explains. “They might lack the expertise. They might lack the infrastructure. They might lack the partnerships.
“So we’re seeing, for instance, from certain agencies or certain brands creative delays and learning gaps that are having to be overcome as it pertains to the handling of the video creative that we hadn’t seen in a very long time across display and other formats.”
You are watching “Streaming Boom Accelerates the Adoption of CTV,” a Beet.TV leadership series presented by Simpli.fi. Please visit this page for more videos.
